


In The Stars

by twistedchick



Category: Big Eden (2000)
Genre: M/M, cappuccino always helps, getting married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5403896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t the usual wedding, the way weddings were in New York.  It wasn’t even usual for Big Eden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theswearingkind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/gifts).



It wasn’t the usual wedding, the way weddings were in New York. It wasn’t even usual for Big Eden.

The usual Big Eden wedding would take place in the little community church, with loving partners surrounded by family and friends. And the church was big enough to enclose all of the residents of Big Eden who usually went there — but Pike didn’t feel that he fitted comfortably inside such small walls. He had stayed outside at Sam’s funeral, under the trees, within sight of the mountains, because he stood in a holy place whenever he was outdoors, and his prayers for Henry would be heard much more easily there than if he had tried to cram them through the midst of everyone else’s wishes and thoughts and upset inside those four walls.

Pike never said any of this to Henry, but he didn’t have to. Henry always understood, without the words.

So the day that Henry came back from Billings with supplies, a big box of dog treats for Frances, and two little boxes and handed him one, it was understood that anything that happened wouldn’t be indoors.

Pike looked at the box, and at Henry, whose smile was wide and relaxed and only slightly anxious, and nodded, and smiled, and Henry threw his arms around him. When he settled in Pike’s arms, all he said was, “Where? And when?”

“You got the license?” The thought of Henry being that hopeful made his heart ache a little, because there was no way he could ever say no to Henry, not any more than he could have said no to Grace when she started this whole dance that ended up with them dancing together.

“It’s good for a while; we could wait if you wanted to. Like, if you’ve got someone from somewhere else you want to invite.”

“I’d like to have Mary Margaret here.” Pike nodded, watching Henry light up at the thought. “She’s your friend and I like her.”

“Okay, but she is not going to be the matron of honor. She ran my life enough in New York, even if it was all for the best of reasons. She doesn’t get to do it here.” Henry shuddered. “Wedding planners!”

“Wedding … planners? What do they do?”

“Make arrangements for the church and the service, order flowers, arrange for somewhere for a reception afterward, entertainment…”

Pike made a noncommittal sound. Maybe that might be necessary in New York. It was big enough that he didn’t know how people found their way around, and organizing them for an event was likely a good idea, but not a Big Eden one.

“We don’t need a wedding planner.” Pike let his eyes crinkle at the corners, just to see Henry smile again. “We’ve got Grace.”

***

Grace came over to the store to see them, and they sat in the small living room in back after getting cappuccinos. Jim brought them in personally, and then shooed out all of the followers who tried to come with him.

“All right,” Grace said, after a sip of hers. “We’ve set the date, and the rain date, and we’ve got the location arranged. It shouldn’t be any trouble getting people there. I know you’ve said you want something quiet, but if you’d like to have some music, the kids at the school or the church choir would be glad to pull something together.”

“Instrumental music, maybe? No horns and brass?” Henry offered, after a glance at Pike. “There’s a Bach thing I like, or maybe some Mozart?” 

“I don’t know the composers’ names.” Pike felt a little lost when they started talking about music that wasn’t country and western. “But if you want it, it’s fine by me.”

Frances, hearing the lost tone in his voice, stuck her nose under his arm and leaned her chin against his leg. Pike rubbed the soft spot behind her ear and she closed her eyes, happy.

“Tell you what,” Grace said. “I’ve got some recordings of the ones I think you mean. I’ll bring them over and you can listen to them and tell me what you want.”

“That sounds good.” Henry smiled at Pike, petting Frances. “And I want Frances to be part of it, too. She’s family.”

Grace didn’t miss a beat. “We can do that. Now, about the vows —“

“We’re writing our own.” Pike surprised himself. He hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until he heard his voice. But it felt right to him. 

“Okay.” Henry nodded. “Is it too much to ask that you make the cake, too?”

Pike hadn’t realized how nervous he had felt about the vows until he heard Henry’s agreement. Baking a cake would be easy, bringing him back into the world of things he could do with his hands. “Sure. You tell me what you want.” 

“Who do you want as your witnesses?” Grace asked. “You need to pick two people.” 

“I’m not sure I could pick two.” Henry paused. “Wouldn’t everyone else feel left out?” 

Pike thought a moment. “Is it always two people? I’ve heard that sometimes in the past they had everyone sign the marriage certificate.” 

Grace sipped her cappuccino, considering. At length she said, “Let me check on a few things."

***

“You don’t have to do this,” Jim said, after watching Pike sit motionless with a pen and paper for an hour.

“Yes.” Pike looked up at Jim. “I do.”

Jim paused, filling the doorway, and scratched his chin. “I think Henry knows pretty well how you feel about him.”

This was true, but it wasn’t enough.

“I want to say it out loud.” Pike drew a breath, rubbed his face with his hands, and looked up. “Just once."

Jim's face took on that expression that meant that Pike had said something that Jim thought was smart. “All right. You work on that. I’ll keep the boys from bothering you.” 

He went back out to the store, where three voices could be heard saying, “Cappuccino?” and two more saying, “What’s he writing?”

Pike shook his head and glanced back into the bedroom, where Henry’s painting of the Pleiades hung over the bed. Frances lay on the bed, upside down, paws crossed under her chin, asleep. He watched her snore softly for a while, before putting the pad and pen aside and getting up to start making dinner for Henry.

***

Pike had just come back from the Widow Jenkins’ place — she’d needed help getting a fallen tree branch off her roof, where it was leaning down with the leaves rattling against her windows — when he heard Frances make a confused sound. He walked around the corner of the building to see the guys trying to talk her into walking. She was wearing one of those dog backpacks, but it had slid around uncomfortably, so she half-lay on the porch, unhappy.

“What are you all trying to do?” He knelt next to her, loosening buckles and straps until she was out of it. “She’s not going to climb Everest, is she?” Frances licked his hand, shook herself until her fur was back in comfortable order, wagged her tail to show she wasn't mad, and wandered off toward the edge of the woods.

Lloyd, looking as uncomfortable as Frances had, said, “We heard you wanted Frances to be part of the wedding, so we thought she could carry something.”

“In an insulated mountaineering pack that’s designed for high altitudes? We’re not getting married above the tree line in midwinter.”

Pike looked down; Frances was nudging his knee, a stick in her mouth, and dropped it in front of him. He tossed it for her and watched her chase it.

Lloyd rubbed his chin. “Will she bring you anything she finds, Pike?”

“Usually it’s sticks, or a rabbit she caught. Once it was a dead woodchuck.” Pike smiled a little at the memory. “Very dead. She was disappointed at my reaction.”

“Will she bring things to someone else?”

“Sure, as long as you pet her and talk to her.”

“Let me work with this a bit. I’ve got an idea.”

Pike raised his eyebrows, but Lloyd waved him off. “No backpack. Just an idea. If it doesn’t work, no problem.”

“Okay.” Pike got down to look Frances in the eye, and she put a paw on his knee. “Frances, you let me know if they’re not treating you right, and I’ll …” he gave the onlookers a hard look, “take away their cappuccinos.”

He went inside, closing the door on their protestations of “We’ll be good!”

***

It took Pike a long walk, on the trail across Lookout Mountain and over to the Great Ridge, before the words began to well up inside him. He held them there, let them resolve and order themselves of their own accord, as he walked back. Frances, who had decided to wait partway down the trail where she had been chasing ground squirrels, put her nose in his hand in greeting, and turned to lead him back to the truck. 

Henry had started keeping a pencil and paper in the glove box for sketching out painting ideas. Pike leaned back against the truck, watching the light play over the crest of the peaks, and let it all flow out through the soft graphite onto the paper. 

Graphite was earth; paper was its own universe of plant grown from the earth, with water and wind and the fire of the sun. And the words were spirit, alive, even after they were written. 

It was good.

***

Making the cake was easier - a sour-cream chocolate fudge cake with the richest, deepest fudge frosting he could contrive, with only a little hint of orange in it. Big enough for everyone there to get a slice.

The hard part was keeping the guys out of the kitchen. They kept stealing “just a taste” of the frosting. He gave them the mixing bowl when he was done, and listened to them bicker about who got the beaters and spatula to lick.

***

It looked like the whole town was gathered around them, in the little park by the edge of the lake. Some of Henry’s art students, who were also musicians, played a tune that Pike thought sounded danceable, in other circumstances. Pike looked up to the mountains that cradled the land, and felt himself settle. He was in the right place, at the right time.

He stood, in the center of the circle, and Henry came to stand with him, and waited.

“Henry Samuel Hart.” Pike looked into his eyes, and saw only Henry, nothing else. His voice came as if from a distance. “Here in this place, at this time, under the sun and moon and stars, you are the one whom I love with all my heart and soul. I will stand with you in all we do in life, and I will be with you until the bright stars take us to dance with them, where we will dance forever together. This I promise you.”

It seemed as if the air itself paused as he finished. A little breeze started up again, ruffling the grass.

Henry gave him that heart-stopping smile that was always a gift, and took a breath, relaxing. “Yep. Me too. You and me, forever, no matter what.”

Pike never saw which of the guys started it, but someone handed a stick to Frances, who carried it into the circle and sat down next to him with it in her mouth — with their rings on both ends.

“Thank you, Frances,” Pike said. He and Henry slid the rings off the carefully carved stick that had been designed to carry them. He held his breath as he placed the smaller one onto Henry’s ring finger, and Henry put the larger one on his. When he was able to breathe again, astonished that he was still alive, and that it was all real and not a dream, they kissed softly. 

It was Dean who started the crowd clapping, and then whooping with delight like cowboys — Dean, with the ring on his finger and Anna and her boys next to him, beaming his happiness at Henry’s joy. And no one could resist joining in. 

Henry hugged Pike, and Pike hugged back and swung him around. They all managed to calm down just enough for the minister to say something official, though Pike could never after remember what it was. 

Grace called everyone to line up to sign the Quaker-style wedding certificate that she’d found, the borders of it decorated with calligraphy like an illuminated manuscript, so that nobody would be left out. Somewhere in the middle of that, one of the boys handed Anna her fiddle and the dancing started in the middle of the line. 

“You’re right,” Henry said quietly, as they two-stepped around the others. “It would never have worked in the old church. It needed to be bigger than that, because you are, and we are. This is just about big enough for us.” 

“The whole world?” 

“Yep.” 

Pike had to kiss him for that.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to wyomingnot and zlabya for beta reading.
> 
> Quaker marriage certificates do indeed bear the names of all those attending a wedding -- because when Quakerism started, the only place you could legally marry was in a church of the government's preferred denomination. Having the whole community support the marriage of a couple gave it legality in the eyes of the community, and eventually in law, when the laws were changed and Quakers were no longer persecuted by the English government. So the custom persists today, and wedding certificates are still signed by every person present.


End file.
